Working in the Lab

1. Chapter 14 Working in the Lab

2. Laboratory Equipments • Lab equipment is an important part of chemistry and science in general. Hot Plate & Stirrer Iron Stand & Ring Bunsen Burner Electronic Balance Crucible Tongs Safety Goggles Iron Clamps Wire Gauze

3. Laboratory Equipments Conical Flask Beaker Graduated Cylinder Test Tube & Rack Volumetric Flask Burette Filter Funnel Pipette Wash Bottle Thermometer Spatula Lab Gloves

4. Laboratory Safety • NO FOOD or DRINK items be taken into the laboratory. • Safety goggles, lab coat and shoes MUST be worn at all times in the lab. In addition, contact lenses are not allowed in the laboratory, even while wearing goggles. • Whenever handling corrosive or toxic materials, protective gloves should be worn. Gloves should never be worn outside the lab. • Always wash your hands thoroughly to remove any potential chemical residues before you leave the lab. • Know the location and operation of the emergency safety equipment, including fire extinguisher, eye wash station & safety shower, and telephone.

5. Solid and liquid chemicals need to be placed in appropriate containers. Fume hood Broken glass or single-use glassware should be placed in the broken glassware crocks after any disposable contents have been removed. Paper products that do not contain chemicals can be placed in the waste baskets. Waste Basket Laboratory Safety • Specific guidelines need to be observed for waste disposal. • Never rinse chemicals down the drain!

6. Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) • Material Identification • – Identity of organization or company creating the MSDS and date of issue • – Material’s identity; includes both common and chemical names • Ingredients and Hazards: • – the products individual hazardous chemicals and their relative percentage of concentration • – Level of hazard: Danger (severe hazard); Warning (intermediate hazard) and Caution (moderate hazard) • Physical Data • – Boiling point, solubility, specific gravity, melting point, molecular mass, colour and appearance • Fire and Explosion Data • – Conditions and chemical characteristics that could cause the material to catch on fire or explode • – Flash points, upper and lower explosive limits • Spill, Leak and Disposal Procedures • – Precautions and safety equipment required in case of an accident

7. Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) • Health Hazard Data • – Routes of entry into the body; inhalation, skin absorption, etc. • – Acute and chronic effects • – Specific risks: carcinogen, teratogen, etc. • – Exposure limits • – Emergency and first aid procedures • – Precautions and safety equipment needed to work safely with the material • Special Protection Information: • – Methods for reducing exposure to a particularly hazardous chemical • – Ventilation, special breathing apparatus, protective clothing • Special Precautions and Comments • – Safe storage and handling • – Types of containers, labels and storage conditions • – Policies for transporting the chemical

8. Laboratory Notebook Writing Why to keep a laboratory notebook? • To provide yourself with a complete record of why experiments were initiated and how they were performed. • To encourage sound thinking. Keeping a notebook gives you a forum to talk to yourself, to ask questions, to jot down important thoughts and comments about the experimental design and how your results might eventually be interpreted. • To provide information to a person who is interested in continuing your research project. • The laboratory notebook is a personal account of experimental results that must answer the following questions to be effective: When did you do the work? What was your hypothesis? How did you perform the experiment? What did you observe? Did your results prove or disprove your hypothesis? How do you explain your observations?

9. General Guides • Notebooks must be permanently bound: no loose-leaf or spiral notebooks. • Handwriting must be legible. All notebook entries must be in ink and clearly dated. No entry is ever erased or obliterated by pen or "white out". Changes are made by drawing a single line through an entry in such a way that it can still be read and placing the new entry nearby. • Everything you do in the laboratory should be recorded in your lab notebooks, including notes, drawings, data, speculations, etc. • Never, under any circumstance, should you remove a page. This rule is to prevent unscrupulous researchers from "losing" data that might not have been favourable to their research objectives. • Keep in mind that reports and presentations will be prepared from the notebook. You should have much more information recorded in your notebook than you can or should put on a poster or into a presentation

10. Organization of the Laboratory Notebook

11. What to go into your notebook? • Include detailed notes on all discussions and thoughts on the experimental goals. This means, of course, that you should start making dated entries immediately rather than waiting until you get your experiment(s) started. • Eventually, include detailed experimental protocols that could be easily followed. Give each experiment a name so that you can refer to it quickly in subsequent entries. All experimental protocols should indicate exactly what measurements are going to be taken. • Provide full justification of experimental details (species, temperature, reagents, etc.). • Annotate all calculations so that all numbers, concentrations, etc. are fully explained and would be interpretable. Remember to include units. • Record experimental organisms providing assistance with data collection, techniques, statistical advice, equipment loans, supplies funds.

12. What to go into your notebook? • Record reagent details. Details include vendor and product information (brand, product number, chemical structure, purity grade, lot number, date of mixing/production, expiration date, etc.). Whenever water is used, specify de-ionized, distilled, tap, cold, hot, etc • Record equipment details (brand, model number, sensitivity…). • Make quick drawings of experiment set-ups, etc. • If you happen to record some data directly onto datasheets (e.g., Excel spreadsheets), include dated entries for all such occasions or paste the datasheet printout in your notebook. • Detail all mistakes, problems with procedures, and lapses in data collection so that you can fully explain "odd" results. • Describe the locations of all samples, seeds, data binders, computer media, etc., so they can be located in the future. • Typically, the laboratory notebook should stay in the laboratory where the experiments were conducted.